


Give and Take

by whoknows



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), Glam Rock RPF
Genre: Kidnapping, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 10:44:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1685504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whoknows/pseuds/whoknows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam inhales deeply, trying not to let his frustration bleed out. Keeping calm is the only way they’re gonna get out of this. “Why didn’t we just stay in the cabin?” he asks.</p>
<p>Tommy looks at him over his shoulder, an incredulous expression on his face. “You wanted to stay in a cabin with two dead guys bleeding all over the place? We don’t even know where we are, there might be a road somewhere close by.”</p>
<p>“At least we would’ve had food and water if we did,” Adam says. Tommy rolls his eyes and starts walking again.</p>
<p>“No one’s asking you to stick around,” Tommy says, and then proceeds to ignore him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give and Take

**Author's Note:**

> So way back in 2010 and possibly 2011 I filled some Adam/Tommy prompts anonymously for various kinkmemes. Now that I have AO3 I decided that I may as well put them all in the same place so I will be uploading them all to this username. This one was cleaned up a little, as I found a couple typos.
> 
> The prompt for this story can be found [here](http://glam-kink.livejournal.com/664.html?thread=173976#t173976) and reads:
> 
> Adam/Tommy kidnapping  
> Adam and Tommy were in a relationship for a while, but they broke up, and Tommy's leaving the band because he and Adam can't stand to be around each other anymore. Right after their very tense last show together, the two of them get kidnapped and are taken to some remote location. Then their kidnappers get pissed at each other and end up killing each other, leaving Adam and Tommy trapped together and unable to get back to civilization for a very long time. What happens next?
> 
> Would prefer a happy Adam/Tommy ending. Would also prefer that the initial Adam/Tommy breakup not be caused by cheating or anything like that.

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Adam demands, shoving a branch away from his face irritably. Ahead of him, Tommy mutters something under his breath and lets another branch swing wildly. 

Adam’s scowl deepens as he shoves it away. “What?”

“I _said_ , if I knew where I was going then I would’ve fucking told you,” Tommy snaps, shoving his way through some more bushes. Adam stops and stares at his back.

“So I’ve just been following you around for _hours_ and you have no idea where you’re going?” Adam asks. He’s trying to keep calm, he really is, but it’s hard. This entire situation is so fucked, and all the fear and anger and resentment that he’s felt towards Tommy the past couple of months is threatening to spill out.

“No one asked you to,” Tommy points out, finally stopping a few steps in front of Adam. He doesn’t turn around, though, surveying the land in front of him like a fucking king or something.

Adam inhales deeply, trying not to let his frustration bleed out. Keeping calm is the only way they’re gonna get out of this. “Why didn’t we just stay in the cabin?” he asks.

Tommy looks at him over his shoulder, an incredulous expression on his face. “You wanted to stay in a cabin with two dead guys bleeding all over the place? We don’t even know where we are, there might be a road somewhere close by.”

“At least we would’ve had food and water if we did,” Adam says. Tommy rolls his eyes and starts walking again.

“No one’s asking you to stick around,” Tommy says, and then proceeds to ignore him.

 

Adam’s never been fond of being ignored – it used to be Neil’s surefire way of getting what he wanted from him when they were kids – and being ignored by the only person around for hours on end makes him more and more frustrated.

He’s been glaring holes into Tommy’s back for at least half an hour by the time Tommy finally stops in a clearing and looks around.

“What are you doing?” Adam asks when Tommy starts kicking dirt around.

“Going to sleep,” Tommy answers shortly, tugging his hood up over his head before plopping onto the ground and curling up on his side. Adam looks around, taking in the trees and plants and leaves all over the place and makes a face. Here, really?

He doesn’t voice the thought out loud, but he’s thinking it loud enough that Tommy glares at him over his shoulder for a second, until he sits his ass on the ground. It’s not like there’s going to be a better place.

He lies back and folds his arms underneath his head, staring up at the sky. He’s tired, but not enough to fall asleep right away.

Tommy clearly isn’t experiencing the same difficulties. His breathing evens out within five minutes, and he stops squirming.

Adam watches his back move for a few minutes before he starts feeling like a creep and rolls over, closing his own eyes resolutely. He needs to get some sleep in order to deal with this shit.

 

When he wakes up, it’s still dark. For a minute, he’s not entirely sure what woke him up.

Then he looks over and sees Tommy curled in on himself, hugging his knees tightly, staring at him.

He’s tempted to ignore it and go back to sleep, but there’s still that part of him that’s wired to respond to that look – the wide eyed vulnerable one that Tommy used to give him whenever he wanted something from Adam that he thought he couldn’t ask for.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, trying to keep his voice as gruff as possible. 

It doesn’t exactly work, but he’s tired and cold and scared so he doesn’t even really care.

“Nothing,” Tommy mumbles, curling in tighter. That’s when Adam notices Tommy’s shivering.

It is pretty cold, and it’s not like Tommy exactly generates a lot of body heat on his own, so he rolls over until he hits Tommy’s side and then slings his arm over his waist.

“What are you doing?” Tommy asks. 

Adam resists the urge to bite him on the jaw – it always shuts him up fast, but he can’t do things like that anymore. “Keeping you from freezing,” Adam says, and then physically moves him until he can spoon up behind him.

Tommy must seriously be cold, because he doesn’t even protest once.

And this time it’s much easier to fall asleep.

 

He wakes up slowly this time, still pressed up against Tommy’s back. He’s hard, in more than just the morning wood way – his body thinks that Tommy in close proximity must mean things are good.

He would be surprised, but chemistry’s never been their problem.

“Get your dick out of my ass, you fucking caveman,” Tommy says abruptly, elbowing him until he moves back a bit.

Adam exhales angrily. “My dick wasn’t in your fucking ass,” he says. He visualizes wrapping his hands around Tommy’s neck and squeezing very briefly before letting the thought go reluctantly, pretty as it is.

Tommy scrambles to his feet and adjusts his clothes. “Whatever,” he says, jams his hands in his pockets, and starts walking.

Adam seriously considers not following for a couple of minutes.

 

They walk for a long time. Adam’s beginning to get seriously worried – he has no idea where they are, and they haven’t eaten in a long time.

When they finally come across a stream, he could kiss the ground, he’s so relieved. Water is always a good sign, right?

They drink for a couple minutes, and then Adam looks around. “I think we should head downstream,” he says.

“That’s stupid,” Tommy says, poking at the ground with the toe of his shoe. “What if it rains and we get caught in a flashflood? We’ll drown.” 

“I don’t think flashfloods happen very often in this part of the country,” Adam says. 

Tommy fixes a belligerent look on him. “How would you know? Do you know where we are? No, you have no idea, which means that we could be in flashflood territory for all you know and going upstream is a better idea.”

Adam sighs and rubs a hand across his jaw. He’s never had much in the way of facial hair, but it’s been days and what he does have is prickly and making him itch.

“More people live downstream than they do upstream,” he says.

“Yeah, unless they live in flashflood areas,” Tommy insists. Adam grits his teeth and resists the urge to shake him until his brain rattles around in his head.

Then again, if he knocked Tommy out he could just drag him along and not have to worry about his complaining. 

“I’m going upstream,” Tommy declares, and then actually turns around and starts walking. He doesn’t wait for Adam, and he doesn’t even turn around to see if Adam’s following – just keeps trudging along.

Adam grits his teeth harder and follows.

 

Tommy stops a couple of times during the day and picks berries off of leaves and proceeds to eat them, ignoring Adam’s warnings. For all they know these things could be poisonous and kill them, but Tommy doesn’t seem to care.

Adam’s pissed about that, and they keep arguing as they walk – about everything from the path that Tommy picks to whether even walking is a good idea. 

They’re in the middle of fighting over whether Tommy should be in the lead or not when Tommy stumbles over something and goes down.

“I _told_ you so,” Adam says. He stops where he is and waits for Tommy to get up, but after a few seconds it becomes clear that isn’t happening.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Tommy spits into the ground. Adam’s on his knees at his side in a second, turning him over gently.

“What happened? Are you okay?” he asks. Tommy looks fine, no sign of blood or anything besides dirt, really.

“My ankle,” Tommy says, biting his lower lip. “Shit, I think I broke it.” 

Adam winces. A broken ankle is very bad, especially given their current situation. “Can you sit up?” he asks, already moving him into a sitting position. He lets Tommy lean against him while he runs his fingers over Tommy’s ankle gently, trying to ignore his sounds of pain.

“I don’t think I can walk,” Tommy says after a minute, voice small. He leans into Adam’s side.

“We’re so screwed,” Adam says to the top of his head. They sit there for a few minutes before Tommy opens his mouth again.

“We should probably get away from the stream for the night,” Tommy says. Adam nods and stands up, and then hauls Tommy to his feet, careful of his ankle.

Together, they make their way to a suitable place for sleeping, their progress hindered by Tommy’s limp. By the time Tommy settles on a place, he’s pale and shivering, and he looks like he’s gonna throw up.  
Adam settles him on the ground and then pulls him close, trying to keep him warm and as comfortable as possible.

It’s going to be a long night.

 

Things don’t look any better in the morning. Tommy’s miserable – he’s stopped bitching at Adam altogether, and every time Adam disappears from his sight he sits there, curled in on himself, shivering, until Adam comes back, and then he clings for a while.

Adam hurts for him. Tommy’s tough, he always has been, but this is pushing him. Fuck, Adam’s terrified, he can’t even imagine how Tommy must feel, a broken ankle on top of everything else.

So he’s shocked when Tommy says that he needs to leave him and find some shelter.

“What? No, that doesn’t even fucking make sense!” Adam explodes. “How the fuck am I supposed to even find you again, huh?”

“Well, it’s either that or you’re gonna have to carry me,” Tommy says. Adam barely even lets him finish before he’s scooping him up, arranging him carefully over his shoulder.

“Which way am I going?”

 

It’s slow going. Tommy’s not heavy, but carrying him is awkward, regardless of how Adam tries it. It’s actually easiest to keep him over his shoulder, but it makes it hard for Tommy to breathe, so they have to alternate every so often.

He worries the entire time he’s walking. Tommy’s ankle needs to be wrapped or something – it’s never going to heal properly if it stays the way it is. They need to get some real food into their systems soon, otherwise they’re going to be too weak to keep walking. They need to find some form of real shelter, preferably with some form of heat, so they don’t catch hypothermia. Finding civilization would also be a really good thing.

He tries to push his worries to the back of his mind and concentrates on walking.

 

Of course, things have to get worse before they can get better. Tommy starts sweating at some point in the early afternoon, and by the time the sun goes down he’s completely out of it.

Adam stopped a couple hours ago and laid him down, but now he doesn’t really know what to do. He checked Tommy’s ankle, but there’s nothing visibly wrong with it that wasn’t there yesterday, and he’s been giving Tommy water – he made a leaf cup. Never let it be said that he’s not resourceful. 

But other than that and trying to keep Tommy’s body at a good temperature, he’s been sitting around holding Tommy’s hand and worrying.

A few hours later, he’s pretty much accepted that he has no other choice and is currently trying to explain to a delirious Tommy why he has to leave him.

Eventually he has to give up and wait until morning.

 

Tommy’s a little better in the morning – he understands what Adam’s trying to tell him, but he looks as bad as ever. He’s paler than normal, lips cracked, fingertips cold, and his voice is scratchy when he tries to talk.

Adam can’t let him go on like this much longer. He really has no choice, so he picks a direction and starts walking. He’s paranoid about getting lost and not being able to find Tommy again, so he goes as straight as possible and examines his surroundings carefully.

There are a few trees that he commits to memory, hoping that it’s gonna be enough to bring him back to Tommy.

He gets lucky. He gets really, really lucky. About an hour after he’s started walking he stumbles across a cabin.

For a few minutes, he just stands there, staring at it. He actually thinks that he’s imagining it at first, but he works up the courage to go up to it, and as soon as he knocks, he knows it’s real.

No one comes to the door, as he tries the knob. It’s locked, of course, but it’s a cabin in the middle of nowhere, so Adam really isn’t giving up that easily. He tries breaking the door down, but it’s sturdier than it looks.

He settles for smashing a window in and hauling himself through. It’s not the most ideal solution, considering that it’ll let the cold in, but it’s either that or nothing.

Once he’s inside, he tries flipping a light switch, but nothing happens, of course. Whatever. So it’ll be dark. 

He finds the kitchen and starts opening cupboards. There’s dishes, pots and pans, but no food.   
There _is_ food in the pantry, though, canned stuff and stuff that won’t go bad, and he stands there looking at it for a few long minutes, feeling like he’s about to cry. It’s gonna be okay. As long as he can bring Tommy back here, they’ll be okay.

He checks the taps before he leaves, and although there’s no hot water, there is running water, so they’ll be able to hole up here for a while, until Tommy’s ankle heals.

He heads back the way he came, praying to a god he doesn’t really believe in that this will be over soon.

 

By the time he gets back to Tommy, the sun’s starting to set. Tommy’s sleeping, curled up into a tight little ball on the ground in the exact same position that Adam left him in.

Adam crouches down next to him and shakes his shoulder a little. Tommy’s eyes open slowly, and he blinks at Adam heavily. “I found a cabin,” Adam says, keeping his hand on Tommy’s shoulder. “There’s food and water, but the sun’s setting. You wanna try to go now or in the morning?”

Tommy blinks again, and for the first time Adam notices the dark smudges underneath his eyes. As far as Adam can tell, they’ve been here for a week, and those shadows are way darker than that. It’s like Tommy hasn’t been getting enough sleep for a month, which is ridiculous, because he’s been sleeping more than ever lately.

“In the morning, then,” Adam decides for him when he doesn’t answer. He settles down behind Tommy and lines up their bodies tightly, trying to give Tommy some of the body heat he so desperately needs.

Tommy shivers the entire night, and neither of them sleeps very well.

 

Adam has to carry Tommy towards the cabin, and Tommy doesn’t complain once, even when Adam stumbles and nearly drops him.

Tommy’s really quiet, actually, which only increases the fear in Adam’s chest. It’s just a broken ankle, Tommy really shouldn’t be this sick, right?

And when Tommy stops talking altogether, Adam knows there really is something wrong. Tommy’s not ever the loudest person in a room, but he’s never had a problem talking to Adam, not even after they broke up. Granted, it was usually just to throw insults at him, but Tommy talked. Even when he was actively ignoring Adam he made more noise than this.

Tommy not talking is probably the scariest thing Adam’s ever had to face.

When they finally get to the cabin, Adam carries Tommy in carefully and sets him down on the bare mattress in one of the bedrooms. It’s already getting cold in there, so he turns to try to find some linen, some blankets, even some wood to start a fire, anything to keep Tommy warm.

Tommy’s fingers tangle in his sweatshirt, though, and he doesn’t seem willing to let go. “I have to find blankets,” Adam says, turning around and covering Tommy’s hand with his own. Just like always, Adam’s hand dwarfs Tommy’s, but Tommy’s fingers are colder than Adam’s ever felt them.

Tommy doesn’t say anything, just stares up at Adam in the dimness of the room, face pale and tired. “I’ll be back in five minutes, baby, I promise,” Adam says, prying Tommy’s fingers off.

The sound that Tommy makes when Adam turns around is heart wrenching, but Adam forces himself to ignore it and walk out.

True to his word, he heads back into the bedroom in less than five minutes, blankets piled high in his arms.

Tommy watches him come in, eyes glittering in the dimness, and still doesn’t say anything. Adam swallows hard and sets about tearing a sheet into strips before sitting on the edge of the bed and dragging Tommy’s foot into his lap gently.

He peels Tommy’s sock off, trying to ignore the soft, pained sounds that Tommy’s making and starts winding a strip of sheet around his ankle, trying to make a brace solid enough for it to start healing.

He takes his time, winding strip after strip of cloth onto Tommy’s foot, and by the time he’s finished, Tommy’s edged closer and closer to him until he’s finally near enough to rest his head on Adam’s back.

Once he’s done, he lets go of Tommy’s foot but leaves it in his lap, and tilts his head down a little, staring blindly at Tommy’s toes peeking out of the makeshift bandages.  
There are tears prickling behind his eyelids, but he ignores them, concentrating on keeping his breathing steady and even. He has to keep it together for Tommy’s sake.

Tommy, whose arms are creeping slowly around his waist, until his fingers lace together on Adam’s belly. 

Adam covers Tommy’s hands with his own, and they sit like that, Tommy’s face pressed into Adam’s back, for a long time.

 

Adam forces water into Tommy for a while, and then, when he seems like he can handle it, canned soup. It’s actually warm, because Adam managed to start a fire, which he’s kind of impressed by, and a few minutes later, Tommy’s coherent enough to start talking again.

“This tastes like ass,” is the first thing he says, and in that instant, Adam couldn’t love him more.

But then, love was also never their problem.

 

Tommy bitches at him for the rest of the day, almost literally whenever Adam’s within earshot.

Needless to say, Adam spends as much time out of earshot as possible. He takes an inventory of the food in the pantry, of the linen in the closet, of the wood readily accessible. They can probably survive in this place for a solid two weeks if they have to, although Adam’s really hoping they don’t.

It isn’t until he heads down to the basement that he finds the flares, though.

“Jesus,” he whispers to himself. There’s ten flares just sitting there, waiting to be lit up so they can be saved.

He leaves them all where they are and goes back upstairs. At first he’s figuring that they’ll be most useful at night, when it’s easier to see them, but when he’s lying awake in the middle of the night with Tommy in his arms, he can admit, if only to himself, that that’s not the reason.

This has been the worst week of his life, but it’s the first time he’s held Tommy in his arms in nearly three months, and he just wants one more night before Tommy walks out of his life.

And he knows that he’ll never admit it out loud, even if he’s directly questioned about it.

 

One night turns into two, two turns into three, and three turns into a week before Adam can even blink. 

They fight – of course they do, that’s what they’re best at, after all – and Adam takes care of Tommy, makes sure he eats when he’s hungry, makes sure the bandage on his ankle is wrapped properly, makes sure they both get as clean as possible in a sink, makes sure he gets enough sleep, and the bags under Tommy’s eyes start to go away.

For the first time in three months, Tommy’s face is open and happy, and he laughs at all of Adam’s jokes, despite having heard them a thousand times already, and Adam listens to him ramble about his favourite movies and why he got the tattoos he did, stories that Adam’s heard a million times, and it feels like it used to, when they could curl up in bed together and fight and fuck and talk and be happy.

And Adam doesn’t want to let him go. Not now, not ever.

Too bad he can’t figure out how to get past their problems.

 

And of course, they get rescued before he has the chance to figure it out. It’s edging into the early hours of the morning when the knock comes, and Adam thinks it’s a figment of his imagination at first.

So he doesn’t get up, just rolls over a little, tucking Tommy into him absently, and is about to fall back asleep when there’s a burst of sound at the bedroom door. He sits up and stares at the full fledged SWAT team, mouth dry, and pulls the blanket up over Tommy’s bare shoulders.

Beside him, Tommy goes, “fucking took you guys long enough,” all pissy, and Adam smiles at them weakly. 

He has a feeling that there’s a lot of questioning in his future.

 

They get airlifted to the closest hospital, where Tommy’s ankle gets looked at and both of them get checked over.

After he’s pronounced fine, and Tommy’s cast has been set, there’s hours of talking to the police, both with Tommy and without him, and then he sits in the chair in Tommy’s room, staring at him while he sleeps.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there for, nurses going in and out, checking on both of them, before the door bursts open and Adam’s mother comes in, his dad and Neil trailing a step behind her.  
Adam stands up, and he’s being enveloped in a group hug so tight he can barely breathe, and even Neil’s in on it. He clutches back and lets his eyes close, surrounded by the warm, familiar scent of family.

When they finally pull apart, Tommy’s awake. His eyes are just barely open, and he closes them as soon as he catches Adam looking.

“Oh, sweetheart, look at you,” his mom murmurs, enveloping Tommy in a hug just as tight as the one she’d given Adam. Tommy hugs back immediately, sitting up a little, and when they break apart he wipes at his face conspicuously. 

“Adam, did you get anyone to call his family?” his mother asks, pinning him with an expectant look. Adam shrugs helplessly, making his way back to the chair. 

Physically, he’s fine, but he wants to sleep for a month, until this entire ordeal is just a nightmare. “Of course not,” she says, shaking her head a little. “Neil, go call everyone that needs to know, starting with his mother, and don’t forget his roommates.” 

Neil leaves, giving Adam another hug on the way out, and after a couple more minutes, his parents make their way back into the waiting room to inform everyone of their conditions.

Adam exhales slowly, and turns his head back to the bed. Tommy’s laying on his side now, arm hanging off the edge and fingers extended like he’s waiting for Adam to grab onto him.

So Adam does, dragging his chair closer until he can tangle their fingers together and rest his head beside Tommy’s on the flat hospital pillow.

“I’m sorry,” Adam whispers, close enough to be able to feel Tommy’s breath on his face.

He watches Tommy take a shuddering breath. “I know,” Tommy whispers back. “Just. Don’t leave me.”

Adam smoothes his free hand down the back of Tommy’s head and leaves it on his neck. “Never,” he promises, and then he watches Tommy fall asleep.

He wishes it didn’t feel like a lie.

 

Tommy’s released from the hospital two days later. Adam stays with him the entire time, despite the fact that he was never actually admitted himself. 

The press is clamoring for an interview, but security’s been increased, so they make it out of the hospital and into the car with no problems.

They’ve both been warned about PTSD and cautioned to take it slow and have people around they trust. 

Adam’s not entirely sure he wants to leave his house ever again, so when they get there he brings Tommy in with him, and they spend the day wandering around in a daze, always close enough to each other to touch.

But when they go to bed, it’s in different rooms.

 

Adam doesn’t sleep until Tommy shows up and climbs into the bed beside him silently. 

“I think maybe that PTSD is setting in,” Tommy whispers into the dark. Adam wraps him up in his arms and doesn’t let go.

“I know, baby,” he murmurs, and they cry together for what seems like hours.

 

They move past it slowly. Every day is a trial, and time passes slowly. There are nightmares, memories, panic, fear, and counselling to deal with.

They don’t try sleeping apart again.

 

It isn’t until a month has passed and their lives have more or less resumed that things finally come to a breaking point.

Their relationship is fragile at best, but four months ago Tommy was about to walk out, and neither of them can forget that.

It starts as a fight about whose turn it is to do laundry.

“Go fuck yourself, you fucking cowardly bitch!” Tommy screams, and the boy has a pair of _lungs_ on him.

“Oh, _I’m_ the cowardly bitch? You’re the one who can never say what’s on your mind!” Adam snaps back.

He really doesn’t know how it got to this point.

Tommy’s posture slumps abruptly. “You want me to say what’s on my mind?” he asks quietly. “It got to the point where I felt like I couldn’t talk to you anymore, because anytime I tried you were so sure that you knew what was best for me that you couldn’t even listen to what I was saying.”

Adam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I know, I didn’t pay enough attention to you,” he says. “I was kind of busy, though, you know, being on tour and having a million other commitments.”  
“You’re doing it again,” Tommy says, spreading his hands a little. “I don’t know how else to explain it to you. I’m trying to tell you what the problem is and you just keep ignoring me.” 

He looks helpless, and the bags under his eyes have been steadily growing over the past couple of days.

Adam doesn’t want to see him look like that ever again. “Okay, I’m sorry. Tell me again.”

Tommy eyes him for a second, clearly trying to judge whether he’s actually going to listen this time or not. “I couldn’t talk to you anymore,” he repeats. “You stopped listening to me. I don’t know why.”

“Because half the time you can’t even remember to eat properly,” Adam says quietly, eyes tracing the line of Tommy’s jaw down to the bruise peeking out of his shirt. “You don’t know what’s best for you.”

“I managed okay so far, didn’t I?” Tommy asks, frowning just the tiniest bit. “I’m healthy, I have a good job and an alright apartment, I pay all my bills on time, nothing horrible’s happened to me aside from the whole kidnapping thing, which is technically your fault anyway.”

“I know it’s my fault,” Adam says, trying to keep his temper in check. “And I don’t want anything else to happen to you, so I try to keep you from doing stupid shit.”

“You’re not my mother,” Tommy says evenly. “And you do stupid shit all the time, do I try to stop you? No.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt, okay? Is there something wrong with wanting to keep you safe?” Adam demands.

Tommy takes a couple steps back and sits on a chair heavily. “There is when you try to make decisions for me,” he says. “You can’t just take over my life like that. I don’t need you to take care of me, I need you to respect that I can take care of myself and be my _partner_ , so we can make decisions together. Okay?”

Adam stares at him. “What does it matter, if you’re just gonna be leaving?” he asks carefully. Tommy scrubs his hands over his face.

“You’re so fucking stupid,” he mutters before taking his hands away. “I love you.”

Adam licks his lower lip. “I know that,” he says. “I love you too. That doesn’t mean that you want to be with me.”

Tommy rolls his eyes. “Usually that’s exactly what it means,” he says.

“You didn’t think we could make it work four months ago,” Adam points out.

Tommy shrugs. “Four months ago I hadn’t been kidnapped and forced to spend two weeks on top of you. Four months ago I was really pissed at you because you were being a controlling jackass. Now I just want you to hug me and tell me it’s gonna be okay, so.”

“It’s gonna be okay,” Adam says automatically. Tommy smiles, a tiny, private little smile meant only for himself, and Adam feels kind of honoured that he gets to see it.

“I know. And for the record, I’m gonna announce that we’re dating on Twitter, so if you dump me my fans are gonna hate you.”

Adam considers arguing, because this is another one of their problems – Tommy thinks that they should broadcast their relationship to the world, and Adam knows that if they do he’s gonna get shit about corrupting a straight boy for the rest of his life – but ultimately he lets it go. Tommy’s saying that he wants this, that he wants Adam, and that he’s not leaving. 

A relationship’s gotta have give and take, right? This is Adam giving.

“So you want your job back?” Adam asks. Tommy smiles at him for real, standing up, and Adam meets him halfway, hauling him up and kissing him. Tommy dangles above the floor for a second before he wraps his legs around Adam’s waist, and then Adam’s bringing them to their bedroom.

Because he’s given enough for one day, and now it’s time for him to _take_.


End file.
